Re: Kernel Panic: VFS Unable to mount root fs on 21:04
On Sat, Oct 06, 2001 at 02:17:20PM -0400, Stan Brown wrote: I'm trying to set up a new machine this weekend, and i'm in trouble. I know you needed a solution by Monday, so this is a bit late, but I haven't seen anyone else post an explanation of what the error actually means, so... Now, I have a problem. The machine will no longer boot from the hard disk. I get the message from the subject line. I can boot it from the boot floppy. lilo (or something else) is telling the kernel to mount / from device 21:04 and the kernel doesn't know how to do that. According to Documentation/devices.txt in my kernel source tree, major device 21 is the generic SCSI subsystem and minor device 04 in that system is the fifth device, so 21:04 would be /dev/sg4 (or /dev/sge). Either a) you don't have generic SCSI support in your kernel, b) you don't have five generic SCSI devices, or c) you have to boot off a SCSI drive (/dev/sd*), not a generic SCSI device (/dev/sg*). Although a) and b) are both possible, I suspect that c) is also true, so your machine will continue to fail to boot until you tell it to use a device of the correct type. During the install of the 2.4 kernel package. I goot a message about needing to add a initrd line to lilo.conf. That's really only necessary if you use the stock kernel or roll your own and have certain things built as modules; I know filesystem drivers fall into this category, but can't say what else does. I don't use modules much, so I haven't had to deal with initrd. -- When we reduce our own liberties to stop terrorism, the terrorists have already won. - reverius Innocence is no protection when governments go bad. - Mr. Slippery
Re: Kernel Panic: VFS Unable to mount root fs on 21:04
During the install of the 2.4 kernel package. I goot a message about needing to add a initrd line to lilo.conf. This is probably the cause of your problem. I had the same problem the first time I installed a 2.4 kernel package with apt-get. Just follow the instructions and edit your lilo.conf file to point to the initrd file and your machine should work again. HTH
Re: Kernel Panic: VFS Unable to mount root fs on 21:04
- Original Message - From: Dave Sherohman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Debian User List debian-user@lists.debian.org Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 4:52 PM Subject: Re: Kernel Panic: VFS Unable to mount root fs on 21:04 On Sat, Oct 06, 2001 at 02:17:20PM -0400, Stan Brown wrote: I'm trying to set up a new machine this weekend, and i'm in trouble. I know you needed a solution by Monday, so this is a bit late, but I haven't seen anyone else post an explanation of what the error actually means, so... Now, I have a problem. The machine will no longer boot from the hard disk. I get the message from the subject line. I can boot it from the boot floppy. lilo (or something else) is telling the kernel to mount / from device 21:04 and the kernel doesn't know how to do that. According to Documentation/devices.txt in my kernel source tree, major device 21 is the generic SCSI subsystem and minor device 04 in that system is the fifth device, so 21:04 would be /dev/sg4 (or /dev/sge). Either a) you don't have generic SCSI support in your kernel, b) you don't have five generic SCSI devices, or c) you have to boot off a SCSI drive (/dev/sd*), not a generic SCSI device (/dev/sg*). Hmm, maybe the kernel has no support for your scsi card/devices, yes. BTW, probably the magic number written to the real-root-dev file is the magic number description for your root device (every device in Linux can be described by such a number combination - for the numbering system see attached file devices.txt, the format in the real-root-dev file is for example for /dev/hdb1: 0x365). Cheers, Stephan attachment: devices.zip
Re: Kernel Panic: VFS Unable to mount root fs on 21:04
- Original Message - From: Stan Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Debian User List debian-user@lists.debian.org Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 8:17 PM Subject: Kernel Panic: VFS Unable to mount root fs on 21:04 I'm trying to set up a new machine this weekend, and i'm in trouble. I installed a minimal stable over the network. then upgraded to Progeny. Then I wen to istall the 2.4 kernel packages from http://people.debian.org/~bunk (thanks for the good work on these BTW). Now, I have a problem. The machine will no longer boot from the hard disk. I get the message from the subject line. I can boot it from the boot floppy. During the install of the 2.4 kernel package. I goot a message about needing to add a initrd line to lilo.conf. It sufested puting a line in /etc/kern-img.conf (from memory). I have tried this, and also tried adding the sugested initrd line to /etc/lilo.conf. But nieht gets me to the point where I can boot from the hard disk. Help Please! Hi! Have you called the command lilo once at the command line after changing lilo.conf? Maybe that'll do it. Cheers, Stephan
